Stick a Needle in My Eye
by hopesallthings
Summary: It always was hard to keep things from Jasper. So naturally, she had secrets that only he knew. Alice's sequel to Cross My Heart and Hope To Die.
1. Chapter 1

No one else knew what a rush she got from it—the thrill that would tremble in her dead, stony heart, and the way her lips would involuntarily quirk up. All of them believed her to have been used to it by now, thinking that, after all, the couple had been together for decades. A voice she was so used to couldn't possibly mean so much.

She laughed her high, joyous laugh, voice ringing throughout the abandoned forest, rhythmically hitting each tree.

He just watched on, amused.

"You still ain't saying it right, Alice."

She shook her head, nudging him playfully. "Give me another chance." Immediately she sobered, looking at him with complete sincerity, golden eyes shining. "Eh'm feexin' to go shopping wit' ya'll."

He stared at her in disappointment.

Sticking her tongue out, she crossed her arms, watching as he unnecessarily cleared his throat. "It's; Ah'm fixin' ta go shoppin' with ya'll."

"Can't I just say 'ain't' a lot?"

The look he gave her was clearly one of pain.

With mock earnestness, she gazed up at him from her place on the rotting log, angel's face glowing. "Well what's the difference between ya'll, and all ya'll?"

She heard the words seconds before he said them.

He held back his own grin. "Ya'll is only for one person. All ya'll is for the rest of ya'll unless it's just one ya'll."

They stared at each other for a long moment, before she burst out into another chiming fit of laughter, falling down against him.

He shook his head in a faked hopelessness, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer.

"Jazz, it's not my fault. It's harder than I thought it would be."

He rolled his eyes. As if Alice could ever find anything harder than 'she thought it would be.' "Big hat, no cattle, that's all you are." He looked on in sudden horror. "How can my girl be from Dixie and not be able to pull off an accent? I've been cheated."

In a last attempt at another sad imitation of his perfect voice, she straightened herself, coughing into a fist before evenly meeting him. "Ah'm awful sorry. Dawggonnit, Ah try so hard, and've dern near got it, but still just ain't there."

He blinked down at her, frowning.

Finally, he melted.

"Alice, that was terrible."

_1. She never would get sick of his accent._

_That may have been why she attempted to imitate it._


	2. Chapter 2

Nobody else knew what she thought of her past. They knew she was sad, yes; that she sometimes regretted her parents choice. They hadn't realized the bond that had emerged.

She stood outside the nursing home doors, out of place and lost. Another granddaughter, most likely, come to visit out of obligation.

The nurse ignored her, instead choosing to move to the bench, water in hand.

Golden eyes followed her.

"Cynthia? I have your medication for you." Old, crinkled eyes looked up at the young employee, weary of age and patient by it.

She looked on, numb, and at a loss of what to do. She had seen it all already. She didn't know why she came.

But there was always that pull.

Alice had never wanted a sister. She had been content with what she had—with Rosalie, and now Bella, and all that her family gave her. She had Jasper, and that would always prove to be enough.

But the records had given her something.

Something to relate to.

Something much bigger than herself.

Her real family was still at home, waiting for her. Her true family had long ago been shattered, and this last, small piece had become her duty to protect.

She wasn't sure what she had expected to find when she first came here.

Answers? Who would give them? Truth? Truth was a lie.

And yet she still came, and she never looked back.

And when the nurse walked away, and cerulean orbs filled with pain and joy met hers, she saw in an old woman the sister that she once loved.

A sister that she still loved.

Cerulean orbs widened slightly, gray hair falling into a wrinkled face at seeing the small angel standing by the nursing home doors. This angel struck something within—something that had long ago retreated.

And she smiled.

She had never wanted a sister, but with each trip she took to that nursing home, a desire grew.

And then she home, back to the family that she knew would never leave her: the home where he was waiting.

But her heart pulled somewhere else.

She didn't know her sister.

She loved her sister.

_2. A sisters bond is never forgotten, and now she knew this too._

In dedication to my Anna. I love you big sis! May you never forget it.


	3. Chapter 3

None of them knew. They had all just assumed that she had gotten rid of it—that she'd want no further part than absolutely necessary, than what she had already played. They assumed that the second she could have, she had destroyed it.

One knew the truth.

Sometimes, one was enough.

Burying her face further into her hands, she cringed as the cynically mocking voice of James repeated on the computer screen in front of her.

_She'd been stuck in that black hole of a cell for so long. A hundred years earlier she would have been burned at the stake for her visions._

It's all she was to her parents: an evil child. A demon to their perfect lives.

_She didn't even seem to notice the pain, poor little creature. She'd been stuck in that black hole of a cell for so long._

_In the nineteen-twenties it was the asylum and the shock treatments. When she opened her eyes, strong with her fresh youth, it was like she'd never seen the sun before._

What was it like for her? Shock treatments would hurt. The darkness. The inheritance her parents had left for her. A prison cell of nothing of pain and accusations.

_The old vampire made her a strong new vampire and there was no reason for me to touch her them. I destroyed the old one in vengeance._

The only one who had ever cared for her before Jasper; the only one willing to sacrifice something for her own safety. And he had died because of her.

What kind of a monster was she?

"Alice?" She spun around at the sound of her name, staring at him with wide golden eyes, one of the few times in her life that she had ever been caught off guard.

When she was caught off guard, it was always by the same person.

"Jazz. I didn't hear you coming."

He frowned, her normally cheerful manner gone dead, replaced in a fake glee. "You told me that you'd get rid of it."

She sighed, tiny shoulders slumping in disgust at her own stupidity. She shouldn't have watched it so soon after that argument. She should have waited longer.

"I tried," she pathetically whispered. "I just couldn't do it. I need it."

"Lis," was the soft, murmured reply. He stepped up to her, pulling her into his arms and sitting below her in the chair. Her black spikes of hair ticked beneath his chin. "You're not going to find anything in that."

She pushed her temple into his chest, sniffling slightly. "I know. I just…it's the only thing I have left of that life."

He kissed her forehead gently, entwining his fingers into hers.

"Sometimes, memories are lost for a reason."

_3. Despite the horror that played in it, she had never gotten rid of the tape._


	4. Chapter 4

Nobody knew what she did on those occasions—those times when she would apparently slip out for no apparent reason, and vanish for hours at a time. They all assumed that it was one more shopping trip, one more spree around the windows that displayed the latest fashions, one more chance to try on the new dress that she had seen in a vision before. Nobody knew the truth.

Except one.

He ran faster, catching her scent on the trail that whispered of her presence not minutes before. The dirt kicked up beneath him as he made his way back to the white mansion, the house abandoned save for one. He took the stairs two at a time.

Three hours since he had last seen her. Three hours were far too long.

Her voice filled the air, causing him to pause outside their bedroom door. She was happy.

It made him smile as he went in.

She didn't bother looking up. "I'm just saying," she instead continued, ignoring him in favor of the two dolls in her hands, "that it would have been better if you had just told him."

The other doll gasped in mock drama, and the voice tone changed to fit the character. "How could you say such a thing?"

He tilted his head to one side, rapping lightly at the desktop to gain his wife's attention. "Is there room for one more?"

Alice sighed, dropping the dolls to the wooden floor and staring at him in annoyance. Her emotions, though, were anything but. "Jazz, the last time I tried to include you in this, you accused me of trying to rob your masculinity." She went to play with the red, curly hair of one of the porcelain pieces; it's dress was immaculate, perfectly straightened, the laces frayed out in delicate strands of material. The pink lips were forever embossed in a gentle smile.

He laughed. "I promise you that I won't accuse you of any such thing anymore."

"Very well," she conceded. "Would you like to be Ashley, or Jennifer?"

He grimaced. "You desperately need a man in your collection, love."

A bell-like giggle rang through the room, chiming as it hit each separate wall.

Nobody else knew that she enjoyed playing with dolls. None of them knew that she had a box of them stuffed into the back of her closet. She herself didn't know why she could never get rid of them.

Maybe it gave her a childhood back; the one that had been stolen from her the moment her parents made a hideous choice. She always was curious as to what she had enjoyed doing, back when she was still free.

Or maybe it was because she had to see the future so much.

See it, but rarely have the capability of changing it.

With children's toys, she had a choice. Their lives would be what she made them to be. Their futures could be decided by her, with no outlying factors that would change all that she had wanted to have happen.

Maybe, visions that one couldn't sway were harder to face up to than the rest of them thought.

In the end though, it didn't matter, because it gave her peace, which gave him peace, which made her happy.

_4. She liked to play with dolls._


End file.
